Always in charge: how to keep your mobile devices charged up

Kat Hobza resides in sunny Western Montana. She is the Senior Authoress Specializing in Sarcasm at www.funnyfreelance.com. Okay, she’s the only authoress at funny freelance. When she’s not formulating tongue-in-cheek ideas and content as...

Stay charged!

We have become so reliant on our smart phones' ability to check our e-mail, update our Facebook and tweet all at once. But it takes a lot of juice to have all that fun and convenience at your fingertips.

What is worse than being in a text feud with someone and having your phone take a digger because the battery is dead? Here are a few ways to extend the life of your cell phone battery.

Car adaptor

In the old days, you could only charge your battery while tooling down the open road. Now, some of the devices you use for your music library on your iPhone also charge your battery while you listen to music. What a welcome twofer. If you listen to tunes in your car on a regular basis, you may never have to worry about a dead phone again.

Computer charger

If you’re one of those people who forgets to plug your phone in at night, get an adaptor for your computer and charge away! Talk about multi-tasking. Now you can write that dreadfully boring report that your boss asked for, all while restoring the juice in your cellular device.

Eliminate noise

Every time your phone makes that little clicking sound when you are text messaging, you are using valuable battery life. If it is vibrating each time you get a text that is also taking an unnecessary toll on your phone’s battery charge. Audit the sound and vibration settings on your phone and eliminate the ones you can in order to avoid needlessly wasting valuable battery life.

Drain your phone

Once a month, charge your phone completely, and then drain the battery completely. This maximizes the functionality of the device’s battery and believe it or not, actually increases the life of your battery in the long term.

Monitor your operations

It takes a lot of energy to be your phone. It not only has to comply with your every Internet and phone request, it has to keep track of where you are! It’s like having your own personal robot/assistant. But all that work makes your phone tired! If you find that your battery is needing a boost more often than seems reasonable, it may be time to readjust your settings. The location services feature uses various means to track your location. Creepy, huh? Actually, your can’t-live-without cell phone is just trying to be helpful when you ask it for information by retrieving data that is in your area, or giving you directions based on your location as a starting point. If you don’t need or want this, which a lot of people don’t, simply go into your settings and shut it off. If you are in a place where there is little to no service, switch your phone to airplane mode. This takes your phone “off-line” so none of the phone/text messaging/web/e-mail services work, but you can still access games, the music library, etc.